


Crown Loyal

by tysonrunningfox



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Modern Royalty AU, prince hiccup security guard astrid au, this is princecup on tumblr i just want everything in the same place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tysonrunningfox/pseuds/tysonrunningfox
Summary: Guarding the Crown Prince of Berk was supposed to just be a job.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

Astrid doesn’t flinch at the tap on her shoulder, giving the crown prince a bemused look and rolling her eyes. “What is it now?” 

“Umm,” he leans in close, the smell of expensive cologne drowning out his usual scent of soap and leather as he whispers in her ear. “In the next room, I totally saw a terrorist.” 

“How do you know?” She pulls the radio from her handbag, holding it up to her mouth and preparing to send the rest of the royal family’s secret service into action. She sees Duke Jorgenson across the room, chatting with a bored looking waitress holding a tray of Dom and tries to calculate how long it would take to grab him and rush to the car outside. 

“Because they were just—they all just looked like horrible, horrible prince murdering terrorists.” 

She frowns at him, “that’s not a joke, Hiccup—Prince Haddock.” She looks around to make sure no one heard her slip. She knew this was a dangerous game from the first time she kissed him, on the back porch of the palace, after he broke all the rules and followed her all afternoon on horseback, chatting about nothing in particular. The king trusts her with his son’s safety. The rest of this is just stupid. “Do you actually think you saw a threat? Who was it?” 

“Just, you know,” his hand lands warm and tentative against the small of her back and she rolls her eyes, “a whole lot of terrorist looking people. Specifically prince murdering terrorists you’re supposed to protect me from.”

“Right, specifically prince murdering terrorists,” she scoffs, batting his hand away and looking around for anyone who could have caught them. Duke Jorgenson is still preoccupied with the waitress’s cleavage and the other bodyguards are spread out throughout the party. Her dress still feels restrictive, plain black and to her knees, and she hates the parts of this job that necessitate blending in. Her normal weapon wouldn’t fit in her small satin purse and she’s left with just a .38 handgun and one extra clip.

It’s not the moment to joke about terrorist threats. 

“Seriously. All the terrorists, from every country. They’re all specifically after me, and you should probably escort me back to the limo for safety.” His hand slides down, fingertips flirting with the base of her dress’s zipper and she steps away, glaring at him. 

He doesn’t look like himself. Hair neatly parted and slicked down, clean shaven rather than sporting a day or two’s stubble. His suit is worth more than her entire apartment building, probably, the royal crest embroidered with silver thread on his pocket square. She remembers him complaining from outside her window that morning, windblown from his ride and fretting over how much he hates tuxedos. Looks like he got away without one.

“Don’t you have princely things to do?” 

“I did all of them, before I realized that this entire party is entirely full of people who want to kill me.” He looks around, falsely wary. “Come on. Let’s go back to the car, I can change, maybe we could go get a drink somewhere where we can, you know, be seen together?” 

“People are seeing us together now,” she snaps, “and if you don’t back off, I’m going to have to radio in a threat and lie just so that it doesn’t look like I’m flirting with my job.”

He steps back, “sorry.”

And she feels bad even though she shouldn’t, everything about the way he looks down and away from her, shoulders slumping forward into the shy prince she used to see on the news, the one that she met when she first interviewed for her position, fresh out of her military officer’s training. 

She sighs, “look, I just—”

“I get it,” he shrugs, “last time was a mistake.” 

She flushes, remembering the last gala they were at, the fact that the king ended up flying off to some other ball in some other country and most of the nobility left after an hour and they ended up getting drunk on champagne and a 30 year scotch. And when she was tipsy, he wasn’t the crown prince, he wasn’t some royal brat, he was 24 and sweet and unintentionally charming and unknowingly handsome and it was her horrible choice entirely when she stumbled up the palace steps with him and into bed. 

Horrible because now he’s not just the pleasant guy she’s guarding anymore. Now he’s clouded and obscured with memories of the way he kissed her neck, the way he groaned when she touched him, the way he sounded, rough and happy, when he said her name in the thick of it. It ruined whatever casually flirtatious rapport they had. It ruined those joking kisses on the cheek when the press asked him about a girlfriend, when she remained steely and hidden behind reflective glasses. 

It ruined everything.

“It was,” she agrees curtly. “I’m not even supposed to be your friend, not really.” 

“Yeah. Sorry, I just…I was just—I don’t know, I’m an idiot. I should have known it was just a one-time mistake for _me_ to get a chance with _you_. I’m sorry for bringing it up again, I—”

“What are you talking about?” She laughs, scanning the party again and finding nothing changed from her last scan thirty seconds ago. She took this job expecting gunfights, and what she got is following Hiccup around to identical events that they both hate. “You’re the crown prince of a country. Give it a couple years and everyone will be wanting a royal baby, they’ll find some beautiful princess from some ally and—”

“Please, it’s not the dark ages, I’m pretty sure selling my _virginity_ for an alliance would get someone arrested for prostitution. It’s all about commoner princesses these days, anyway.” 

“Yeah, beautiful college athletes, not military brats with more combat training than etiquette,” she doesn’t know why she says it, doesn’t even know that she’s been thinking it in some far back corner of her mind, and just hearing it makes her blush, disappointed in herself. “Your dad is just around the corner. You should probably go make sure he doesn’t have anyone else he wants you to talk to.”

“My dad left an hour ago,” Hiccup clears his throat, “ ‘Hold down the fort, son, I’ve got a flight to catch’. He has a private plane. He could have left after this stupid party was over.” 

“He’s testing you, making sure you can handle something like this by yourself.” 

“I guess.” 

“And you can. And you have been for an hour.” She sighs and looks at him, his slumped forward shoulders physically painful, like she dropped it there herself. She guesses she didn’t exactly help. 

That’s her whole problem. She _likes_ him too much. She thinks he’s funny and smart and strangely, distractingly handsome, prince title or no. She hates seeing him upset almost as much as she hates upsetting him. “Until you noticed that the entire party is nothing but wall to wall terrorists.” 

He raises his eyebrows at her, “yeah, nothing but…no good, prince-murdering terrorists in here. I’m surprised it took you this long to notice, Astrid.” 

“Security Chief Hofferson,” she corrects him out of habit, no matter how much she likes hearing him say her name. “You know, most public figure kidnappings happen after 10 o’clock at night.” 

“You’re making that up,” he grins, “but you said it like you really believed it.” 

“It would work just as well to say you’re tired and want to go home, you know.” 

“I’m not tired, I never get tired,” he puffs up, the buttons on his crisp white, perfectly tailored shirt pulling taut. “I’m royalty.” 

Astrid rolls her eyes and holds her radio to her face, “Night Fury is checking out.”

“Roger,” Fishlegs responds from the control room. “Are you accompanying him back to home base?” 

Astrid looks at Hiccup, his frozen smile and raised eyebrows and begging hands, clasped together in front of him. Those fingers are tainted too, they can’t ever really be a friendly handshake or high five, now that she knows what they feel like against her most sensitive skin, dipping artfully between her legs like he’s not sheltered and fumbling. 

“Yes,” she shakes her head when he grins, nodding excitedly. 

“Affirmative, Security Chief Hofferson.” 

“Affirmative, Telecommunications Officer Ingerman.” She sets the radio back in her purse and waves to Hiccup, “let’s go.” 

“Finally,” he falls into step beside her and she shoves him ahead of her, following protocol and scanning the crowd on either side of them. A moment later they’re in the garage, and he opens the door to the limo even though he’s supposed to wait for her to do that. She climbs in with a grudging smile, adjusting the skirt of her dress and staring at the never used TV at the other end of the enormous backseat. He slides in beside her, sitting a respectful distance away, the heat of his leg still too warm, too distracting. 

“I should go sit up front,” she shakes her head, thinking of her resume and her future and how stupid it is to even entertain getting involved with the crown prince in any capacity. 

“Shut the privacy shield, please.” Hiccup calls forward to the driver, who listens without hesitation, the blinder between the front seat and the back sliding shut with a muffled thump. “I—You look really pretty tonight.” 

She blinks, “I should go ride up front.” 

“That dress. Wow, you’re—I—Don’t hit me,” he holds his hands out towards her, surrendering before she can get truly mad. “I just—I feel like we haven’t really gotten a chance to talk since last—you know, and you’re—things have been weird between us and I know you’ve been avoiding me and I just—I miss you.” 

“It was stupid, Prince Haddock.” 

“Don’t call me that,” he frowns, “and it was stupid…but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t right—I mean, you had to have felt it too. We just—it felt right, ok?” 

“It _was_ wrong.” 

He stares at his feet, his feet in beautiful, shiny leather shoes. Shoes that cost more than her parents’ house growing up. And he’s the epitome of a different world. He’s careless and dangerous and _sweet_. 

“A little bit of wrong never hurt anybody,” he leans forward and kisses her, his hand cupping her chin and holding her there, his lips are soft, beseeching, gliding across hers with an impossible, innate smoothness. Her hands find his chest and push back, and she gasps for breath, exhaling pointedly and glaring at him. 

“Can you stop making this so hard for me?” She laughs, “of course it felt right for me too, you can’t have that sort of…connection without it coming from both ends but…but…” 

“But you could lose your job,” he strokes the side of her face, pausing to tug gently at her earlobe. “You know, the last bodyguard I had was insane. He hit on me all the time. He peeked in my windows at night and called me brother. The one before that was old and always falling asleep on the job. I’ve never really trusted them the way that I trust you. I honestly believe that if some psycho broke in that window right now and tried to kill me that you would take care of it.” 

Astrid looks out the window at the country outside, bleary and passing quickly, all orchard and vineyard. She bites the inside of her lip, “that’s because I’m good at my job.” 

“And because you’re a good human being who’s not doing this for a paycheck.” 

“I’m sort of doing it for a paycheck,” she smirks, “I do have to pay for the apartment I’m never at because I’m always at the palace.” She’s dodging the issue and she knows it and she forces herself to look him in the eye, those pretty green eyes that look nearly black in this faded light. “I like you, but if I admit it, I have to quit.”

“You just admitted it,” he kisses her again, and it’s more convincing than it should be. More compelling. Like a magnet or a black hole sucking her in, and she finds herself glad for the privacy shield as she swings her leg over his lap, her skirt riding up her thighs as she presses closer to him, trying to convince herself that this is good and right and worth the wonderful warmth furling in her chest. His hands land on her waist, pulling her closer to him and she gasps against his lips. 

“How sound proof is that barrier?” 

“Eh,” he shrugs, pulling her hair over one shoulder and kissing her pulse point, his tongue darting out to taste her skin. “He signed a don’t say anything agreement just like you did.” 

“That doesn’t mean much to most people,” her hands find the knot of his tie and she tugs it loose, running her hands down his chest and popping the buttons of his overpriced, tailored shirt open. She rests her palm over his pounding heart and kisses him again, her tongue tangling with his. He tastes like champagne and political banter, exactly how royalty is supposed to taste and she almost pulls back before he cups a hand around the back of her neck and presses her to him. 

They fit, like puzzle pieces, and she arches her back as he unzips her dress, shrugging the straps from her shoulders and laughing quietly when he unhooks her bra without further fanfare. He pulls it off of her, their kiss breaking briefly as he looks down at her, his hand cupping her breast. 

“My eyes are up here.”

“I know, there’s just slightly more light than there was in my bedroom last time and I’m going to enjoy this.” 

“Get on with it,” she grinds down against him, looking out the window briefly and flushing at the countryside racing past. He pinches her nipple and she moans, reaching between them for his zipper. 

“Alright, alright,” he ducks down, kissing her nipple in a drawn out, loving, unnecessarily arousing way, and his hand slides up her inner thigh, flirting with the edge of her underwear. He plays with the lace at the edge of the material for a moment before pushing it aside and brushing his fingers against her. She’s wetter than she should be, further along this dangerous path than she thought she was and her hips buck reflexively against his hand. She stifles her moan by biting her lip, freeing him from the confines of his slacks and funning her fingers along him. He gasps, his fingers digging into her shoulder. “Are you…are you sure?” 

“We aren’t very far from the palace,” she looks outside again before lining him up with her opening, sinking down onto him and biting her lip. “We better hurry.” 

“Astrid,” he hisses her name, his hands clamping tight on her hips and holding her close. She kisses the tip of his nose, because she can’t help it, and somehow he manages to remain cutely appealing even now, when his head is thrown back against the seat in pleasure. He bucks up into her and she rocks forward, searching for her rhythm.

His hand slips between them, his thumb landing carefully, artfully against her clit and rubbing in careful, tight circles, just how she instructed him last time, drunk and giggling under his bedroom sheets. She rocks forward faster, with purpose, resting her head against his shoulder and breathing hard. 

“Fuck,” she whispers against his neck, holding back the urge to moan, the urge to cry out. He has practically his own wing in the palace and she thinks about following him to bed, doing this again uninhibited, his head between her legs making her cry out again and again. “Oh fuck, Hiccup.” 

“God, you feel good,” he groans, seemingly unperturbed by the driver just a few feet away. Maybe the barrier is better than she thinks. She moans in spite of herself and he grabs a handful of her ass, speeding her up, bucking up into her as his thumb rubs a slower, clumsier circle against her. “How…are you close?” 

“Yeah,” she nods, reaching down and grabbing his hand, guiding it in the proper rhythm against her, the one that feels like fire and lightning as his fingers glide across her, slick and sure. “Really…mmm.”

It’s only a moment then, a paralyzing moment teetering on the edge with only him anchoring her back to the ground before she’s groaning into his neck, her hips bucking without rhythm against him. He continues rocking up into her, his hand sure on her hip, his hips twitching with faltering rhythm as he follows her over the edge with a barely stifled groan. She kisses the sensitive skin behind his ear, breathing in that last hidden spot of Hiccup scent, untarnished by cologne. 

“We’re almost back,” she mutters, thinking about her discarded purse and bra and her job and all of those other things she can’t quite grasp with the glowing warmth flowing through her limbs. 

“You could come up with me, you know,” he pants against her neck, his lips electric and taunting. “No one would say anything.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” she slides off of him regretfully, confused, her head and heart swimming in entirely different directions. “Of course I can’t.” 

“You could,” he kisses her cheek, her forehead. “You could show up at breakfast with me in the morning and I could introduce you to the whole kitchen staff as my guest and everything would be fine.” 

“It wouldn’t though,” she sighs, turning her back to him so that he can zip up her dress. “Because you’d still be a prince and I’d still be security.” 

He tugs the zipper up with a sigh, dropping one last kiss against the nape of her neck. “You’re drawing a line that doesn’t exist.” 

“And you’re talking about things that you don’t understand.” 


	2. Chapter 2

The palace is unusually quiet with King Stoick gone and limited staff in place and the silence makes Astrid nervous. It’s easier to creep around silent, sprawling hallways than it is to pass in a crowd utterly unnoticed and she peeks down the West Wing’s main hallway, feeling silly as soon as she sees Hiccup sprawled on the floor, his tack disassembled and strewn across the antique carpet. His face lights up when he sees her, and he drops a leather polish covered rag, wiping his hands on his pants. 

“I didn’t realize we were playing hide and seek.” 

“We’re not,” she fumbles with the radio clipped to her belt for a second before flicking it off. “Do you _have_ to do that in the middle of the hallway? You do realize someone is going to have to clean that up, right?” 

“Newspaper,” He folds up the corner of today’s news, his father’s face smudged with dark brown leather polish. “Toothless hates the smell.” 

“Wow, your horse is more spoiled than you are.” A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth and she leans sideways against the wall. 

“Did you just come over to my neck of the woods to tell me that I’m spoiled?” He laughs, looking at the ornate ceiling above him, the crystal vase holding fresh cut flowers on the decorative hallway table. “Because I already knew that.” 

“Any suspicious activity?”

“Actually yeah, there’s some strange woman dressed in a security chief uniform, but her radio is off, so I don’t really know what to think about this off the books conversation,” he raises his eyebrows, biting his lip and looking around. Her stomach sinks and twitches, because they’re alone and they were alone two nights ago, and something about being alone with him chips away at her carefully cultivated reserve. 

“You’re right—”

“No,” he scrambles to his feet, tripping over his saddle and stumbling a few steps towards her, hands held in front of him. “Don’t turn it back on. And I know you’re fast enough that you could do it without me noticing, because—just don’t.”

“Maybe I want to hear why I’m so fast.”

“Because of all of your soldier training and general badassery and—“

“Spit it out, Hiccup.”

“No Prince Haddock?” He smiles tentatively, and it makes him look younger, strange and stranded, like he really does belong in the barn among the piles of hay and shiny clean saddles. 

She wonders what she’d think of him then, if he were just some guy at work, some guy in the barn that worked near her, for the same…establishment. If this weren’t about home and country and he were just a handsome, sweet, ridiculous _groom_ and he tacked up the prince’s horse and shot her ridiculous smiles and commented on her gun and they met up after some gala and—

She shakes her head, it’s not worth thinking about, because that’s not how it is. 

“If you don’t need anything else, Prince Haddock—”

“Wait,” he stares at her for a second like a deer in the headlights, “I do need something.” 

“What?” 

“Umm…”

“What do you need?” 

His face screws up and he drums his fingers on his thighs. “I need…It’s…what time is it?” 

“It’s eleven thirty,” she looks at her watch. 

“I need lunch.”

“I’ll tell the kitchen—”

“No, real food,” he shakes his head. “Real Berk food, none of this nutritionally balanced, prepared by a five star chef shit. I want—I want a burger.” 

“I’m sure someone will make you a burger and hold the vegetables.” 

“A real burger,” he grins, “you’ve lived in Berk your whole life, you must know an excellent place to get a real, Berkian burger.” 

“I think you’re a bit sheltered from this country’s absolute lack of cuisine.” 

“Unshelter me,” he clasps his hands between them, “you’re the only thing preventing the future monarch of your beloved country from being completely sheltered from his people and their diets.” He grabs her hand and holds it between his, his eyes wide and too earnest for everything that’s coming out of his mouth. “You have the power Astrid, to single handedly prevent a modern Marie Antoinette situation. And you know what that means,” his face lights up and he draws a finger across his throat. “If you don’t take me to get a burger and educate me, right now, there will be a revolution and my head will roll. And that won’t look very good on your resume.” 

“How do you know I’m not the one working the guillotine?” she takes a step back, wiping her palm on her slacks and trying to forget how his fingers felt against hers, around hers.

“Because I trust you.”

“Don’t think the puppy dog eyes are going to work on me,” she looks away, down the hallway, at her switched off radio, the battery light red and blinking slowly. 

“Well they aren’t going to work if you don’t look.” 

“And how exactly would that go?” She holds her hands out like she’s presenting a headline. “I can see it now ‘irresponsible security chief takes crown prince to seedy burger joint’. Your dad will love that one.” 

“Come on, I don’t even look like Crown Prince Hiccup Haddock right now,” he looks down at his stained pants, his old tee shirt from a charity event at her old high school he must have attended in 2013. “No one has coiffed me, I’m just…Hiccup.” 

She sighs, reaching up and ruffling her fingers through his hair, mussing it over his forehead and trying not to look at his smile when she brushes against his temple. 

“I know a place. It’s a bit of a drive.” 

“Even better,” he leans closer to her, too close. She clears her throat. “I mean, you can educate me more on my country. On the way.” 

“It’s like half an hour.” She looks down at herself for a second before taking off her blazer with the security badge and her belt. She tosses them on the floor, near his saddle, and pulls her personal keys out of her pocket. She adjusts her button up shirt, it feels too tight, too formal, but it’s better than walking around with the Haddock family crest on her chest like a target. 

“You don’t hear me complaining.” He falls into step beside her and she avoids eye contact with the security camera in the foyer. 


	3. Chapter 3

So, Hiccup isn’t stupid enough to whine about being a prince. That’s a long and pathetic road full of dictators and less-successful assholes, and he’s not _complaining_ anyway, that’s too strong of a word. He just wishes that someone understood that being Crown Prince of Berk isn’t fun, most of the time. Grand balls aren’t fun, they’re just an excuse for his father to trot him out in public like a show horse. Charity events aren’t fun, they’re just a reminder of how much and how _little_ power he has, simultaneously. Someday, he’ll be able to sign anything he wants into law with a flick of a pen, but now all he can do is sit there in front of walls of cameras, looking glossy in tabloids and being judged on the front page of newspapers. 

It’s not like it doesn’t have its perks, of course, there’s the palace and the barn and the fact that he can ask for anything and it just _appears_ in a way pretty much anyone would kill for, and he’s not saying that those aren’t perks but…

Well, the private security force is really a downer. 

Toothless stomps, impatient, as Hiccup turns him in another circle by the arena gate, biding his time until Astrid finally appears from the security building twenty yards away. He tried to look busy for what felt like a really long time, grooming Toothless _twice_ and adjusting every adjustable bracket on his tack before mounting. 

And yes, he understands that there was a _threat_ yesterday while he and Astrid were gone, but also, he thinks that the day a teenager trying to climb the back fence on a dare is considered a threat is the day that Berk’s brave history shrivels and dies. And he thinks that keeping Astrid in a meeting for over two hours isn’t fair. She wasn’t even here during the supposed _threat_ , so it has nothing to do with her. 

Plus, the meeting has been going on for longer than they were even gone yesterday, and Astrid’s job is protecting _him_ not the castle, and he couldn’t have been safer than he was in the passenger seat of her shitty car. He wants to buy her a new car, one that doesn’t have a blinking check engine light and two bald tires, but she’s too stubborn to let him. She doesn’t let him do anything, she wouldn’t even let him order his own burger because apparently, it was unequivocally wrong when he tried to substitute some of the toppings. 

She was right, of course, because she’s always right, but then Security Officer Ingerman had to call her about the threat and lecture her about her radio being off and they had to drive back all at once. 

So, he’s sort of thinking about firing the entire security force. Just…eliminating it as a department of palace maintenance. If Astrid weren’t so worried about losing her job, she could date him. She likes him when she’s off duty, he’s sure of it. And not just in a ‘banging him because he’s non-threatening and she doesn’t have time for a boyfriend’ way. She seems to actually like him, like she rolls her eyes at all his worst jokes and he definitely doesn’t pay her for that so she’s doing it of her own accord. 

But she’d hate him for firing her. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be her, and he wouldn’t like her so much. 

The door on the security building swings open abruptly and he nudges his heels against Toothless’s sides, trotting along the rail like he’s been riding around completely normally this whole time. Three men in suits file out before Astrid, who looks significantly more frazzles than normal, a few stray strands of hair falling out of her braid and hanging around her face. She looks rumpled, and he wonders if that’s how she looks in the morning. 

He’s never seen it, even though they’ve…been together twice, she’s always left silent in the middle of the night, her face gray and blank and stubborn. 

She looks up at him and pauses before stepping up and leaning her elbows on the rail. She waves him over and he almost doesn’t listen, because if she’s so willing to talk to him maybe it’s his turn to play hard to get. But, you know, family aside he’s already tracing that grubby, stable boy, hard to want line and she’s perfect, so he halts in front of her, patting the side of Toothless’s neck. 

“A little far away to eavesdrop, aren’t you?” She raises an eyebrow and it reminds him of how Gobber looks at him, like whatever scheme he’s thinking of isn’t as clever as he wants it to be. 

“I wasn’t eavesdropping, I was waiting for you.” 

Her face hardens, she purses her lips like she wants to say something but can’t. That’s what he hates most about this, the…employee toned lens Astrid forces all of her interactions with him through. He wants her to say it, even if it’s insulting. 

“Prince Haddock…” She sighs, tucking some of those loose hairs behind her ear. 

“You know, we stopped beheading servants in 1746, you can say whatever you want to me.” He frowns, “not that you’re my _servant_ or anything—”

“Good catch.” 

“I know you work for my father. Not me. You’re just stuck with me all the time.”

“Why were you waiting for me?” Her radio beeps and she takes it off of her belt, “yes, I’ve assumed position _on property_ , radio on, sir.” 

“Glad to hear it, Hofferson.” 

“They’re keeping a pretty close eye on you,” Hiccup nudges Toothless to walk closer and Astrid pats his nose, “is this about yesterday?” 

“Keeping a close eye on _us_ ,” she says it like it means something, like there’s a _them_ to talk about, even if it’s a massive inconvenience for her, and Hiccup takes it as a massive, strategic win.

“Then we should stick together, make it easy on them.” 

She rolls her eyes, scratching Toothless’s cheek, “your horse is bored, are you going to pretend to ride much longer?” 

He grins, “one day you’re lecturing me about being discrete and the next you’re judging my methods.”

“I don’t think you know the definition of discrete, Prince Haddock,” she spits his title like some small part of her might hate it too and he dismounts, stepping up to the fence. She steps back, checking her radio and glaring at him, “do we need to add vocabulary to your Berk cuisine lessons?”

“Are you offering to tutor me?” He nudges Toothless away with his hip as the horse tries to nose a treat out of his pocket. “I never liked my tutors, they’d always let me be right, because I was a prince or something. I did better in college, where they argued.” 

“That’s what’s wrong with you,” she laughs, and it’s real and a little mean, “no one told you _no_ until way too late. It must have messed with your brain development.” She reaches out and ruffles his hair, faltering halfway through the motion and pulling her hand back. 

“The true royal disease. Entitlement. And to think I spent my childhood freaked out about latent hemophilia.” 

“This I can help you out with.” She smiles and it’s sad, closed off, her entire being rigid and square, like her military uniform is pressed and starched under her skin. “Saying no to you is half my job.” 

“And that,” he grins, “that’s something I can work with.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

She looks nervous and it looks good on her, and Hiccup’s heart beats a little faster in his chest. Even as a pampered young prince, he always liked a scheme that would get his hands a bit dirty. 

“Well, Astrid, how a no is received depends entirely on the question.” 


	4. Chapter 4

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how fashion forward would you consider yourself?” Hiccup leans against the desk where Astrid’s sitting, painfully at home in the corner of his quarters, scanning through security logs. He has to remind himself of his own plan, his crazy, impossible, _stupid_ plan that he’s wholly committed to, because if he forgets it even for a second he’s going to kiss her. 

And every time he’s been that stupid before, it’s worked out for him, but then Astrid pulls away. Hard. All at once. 

And he gets it, in that he doesn’t get it at all. He’s never had to keep a job, he’s guaranteed the only one he’ll ever have and at the same time as he understands that’s lucky, he envies something about Astrid’s single-minded focus. Envies and loathes. Because it’s making her more miserable than it’s making him, he can see it in her face, he can feel it in every professional touch that lingers a second too long. 

He may not have heard no about ponies and money and _things_ , but he’s heard no from plenty of women who realized he wasn’t his father in miniature or an easy route to eternal power and fortune, and…and Astrid keeps kissing him. It’s not the other way around. She keeps cracking and kissing him and that means something. 

And he wants to know what would happen if she broke wide open, all at once. 

Astrid looks down at herself and raises an eyebrow, “is the uniform not fashionable enough?” 

“I mean, do you know anything about fashion? Like, do you know what’s hot on the runways this season? Do you keep up with designer headlines?” 

“No, Hiccup, I really don’t.” 

“Perfect!” He spins in a dramatic circle, throwing his arms in the air, “I need your help with something super royal and super important.”

“I’m busy with my actual job,” she points at her log, “why would you need a fashion deficient helper with anything?” 

“Because Snotlout told me to pick out his suit for the Nordic Unity Gala next week.” 

She perks up instantly.

“Great, I’ll drive, let’s go.” He points to the door, checking his pockets for his keys, because this is going well this far, he has a chance for the next phase of The Plan. 

“Hiccup—”

“Hey, last time we went out, we had to hustle back, and it took your shitty car half an hour. My car could do it in fifteen minutes—”

“Yeah, but if you’re speeding around Berk, I’m not exactly protecting you—”

“Is your car fit for _royalty_?” God, he sounds like a douche. He knows he sounds like a douche, honestly it comes back to him most nights when he’s trying to fall asleep, alone, but this one, particular instance is worth it because it’s crucial to The Plan. The Plan that’s not supposed to work this well, The Plan that was supposed to fall apart on the first step when Astrid proved he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did. 

But he does know her. He’s around her all the time, watching. He knows she takes her coffee black and only when necessary and that she fights the most amazing thoughts to keep quiet and that she calls him sir when she’s so frustrated she could scream. 

And he knows that she kisses like it’s going to be taken away from her and he needs The Plan to work or he’s going to scream. 

“No.” She sighs and stands up, slamming her binder shut. “This feels like a wild goose chase—”

“Fine, fine, if you don’t want to help me dress Snotlout in a purple, paisley, velvet suit, I’ll go by myself, utterly unprotected…”

“No, you won’t,” she utters the new magic syllable and crosses her arms. “Let’s go. You drive, we come back the _second_ I need to—”

“Say no more, I agree to all of your reasonable terms, let’s go.” 

Hiccup had a crush on his nanny, when he was ten, and when Astrid got hired, he was honestly terrified that some sort of mommy issue colored thread was holding his whole non-existent love life together. That he’d get a stupid, adolescent crush on anyone who nagged him and tucked his hair behind his ear like a kindergartner overdue for a haircut. But…but then Astrid was different than that. She let things slip, little details he couldn’t have guessed slipping into conversation that was never as professional as it should have been. And she became more than a sexy, badass with a gun standing between him and the mythical threats, she became… _Astrid_.

And he can’t help but love her more as he steps out of the dressing room at the official royal tailor’s in a navy velvet suit with embroidered stars covering the fabric. It’s hideous and hot and he puts his hands on his hips, trying to stop his armpits from sweating. That’s not part of The Plan. Astrid doesn’t need to know that princes sweat, that’s so…mortal.

He has enough against him without bodily functions contributing. 

“What about this one?”

“This one makes me feel like I’m at a really bad fashion show.” She’s mostly looking at her work phone, clanking up at him briefly between emails and he twirls, the jacket barely lifting from his hips like an unenthusiastic lead blanket. 

“That’s a good thing.”

She thinks for a moment, professionally placid expression shifting to something slightly more mischievous. 

“I think we need something with more sparkle.” The corners of her mouth quirk upwards and he _basks_ in it, and even if The Plan doesn’t work he has this, this bordering on silly moment he’s going to stretch with everything she has. 

“More sparkle? Are you thinking like, sequins or glitter? Or pattern, I’m personally a fan of pattern, but that could be because it always manages to make me look like an overly skinny Claymation character and I want to see the effect on Snotlout.”

“That’s not true.” She frowns at her own delivery, like she’s also shocked about the force of it. “I mean, you—I’ll be honest, I don’t like you in a suit.” She bites her lip. “Because it makes you look like the kid in the portrait on all the walls at the military academy, you know? Like you’re…untouchable.” 

He swallows hard. 

_So, you want to touch me_? He wants to ask. _What do I look like now?_

The Plan needs him to wait though. 

“So something spikier.” He wipes his hand down his chest. “Something with sequins, maybe, sharp and sparkly.” 

“That’s the ticket,” she puts her phone in her pocket and points back towards the dressing room, “make it happen.” 

They leave half an hour later with a fuchsia sequin suit in Snotlout’s measurements on order, and Astrid is _giggling_ as they climb into his car, her head leaning too hard back against the seat. He wonders what she’s like when she’s truly relaxed, no jungle cat pretense controlling her limbs. Some part of him feels like he’s almost there and he grits his teeth as he grips the steering wheel. 

“I feel like driving up the coast.” 

“We should really get back,” she looks at her watch and bites her lip, the skin pink and plump and oh so frustrating against the white of her teeth. 

He knows what it feels like to kiss her, to be with her, to feel her. But it’s not enough, it’s just an introduction. He’s got to go further and…and The Plan is the way to do it. And it’s close. And it’s smart in that late night, half-drunk burst of violent mental electricity way. 

He needs a million no’s and Astrid has already promised him those. 

“Did Ingerman call you with something urgent?”

His heart seems to slow down, the seconds before her answer stretching out like only very official, war-type silences are supposed to. 

“No.” She crosses her arms. 

“Then I’m taking a drive.” He regrips the steering wheel, “and you know, when I inevitably crash and burn, do you really trust me to pull myself out of the wreckage?” 

“Of course not,” she scoffs, relaxing slightly, arms still crossed even as she leans back, kicking one foot onto the dash before letting it fall, listlessly and all at once, like she suddenly remembered how much the car cost. 

Sometimes, he wants to throw money at her. Just, literally. He wants to walk into the nearest bank, claim the register for the monarchy and shower her in large denomination bills until she realizes just how little the money means to him. He’s always had it, he’d share it with her if she’d let him, it kills him to see her awkward around things because of a sticker he never looked at twice. 

“I’d say put your feet up all you want, but you aren’t going to do a very good job pulling me out if the airbag shatters your tibia.” 

“You’re acting weird,” she narrows her eyes at him like she’s trying to read fine print tattooed on his forehead. 

“In what way?” He starts the car and pulls out onto the road, glancing at Astrid when she flinches, checking the blind spot that he didn’t. 

Reckless is good, though, it’s good for The Plan. If he’s reckless she’ll stick closer, and he wants her closer. 

“I don’t think you’ve goaded me with puppy dog eyes once today.” 

“That’s not true, I’m being my annoying self.” He pulls onto the highway and checks the clock. It’s only 3:30, so he should take the detour off exit four to get there when he wants to. She was honestly supposed to take longer choosing an ugly suit, but it’s cute how decisive she is. 

“See? You’d never admit that,” she rolls down the window, finger gingerly against the button like she’s scared to leave a fingerprint, “and you keep saying things like ‘shattered tibia’ in this creepy, peppy voice. You’re up to something.” 

“I didn’t realize your position included mental health monitoring.” 

“I’m a full service security guard,” she smiles, the corner of her lip quirking slightly, and if he didn’t know better he’d say she was _flirting_. She looks like she’s flirting, as rare as that is, because most of the time she jumps straight from near apathetic rolling of her eyes to pushing him into some corner to kiss him. 

“That sounds—I mean, who wrote your job description?” Hiccup coughs like he can cover the end of that _winner_ of a sentence. 

He left flirting out of The Plan on purpose, because well, The Plan is full of things he’s good at, like reckless irresponsibility and making a fool of Snotlout. 

Astrid laughs, not as cruelly as she probably should, given what just fell out of his mouth. She punches him in the shoulder, too hard, his hand slipping off the steering wheel. She laughs again and rubs where she punched. 

“Baby.” 

“You’re the one bruising what you’re supposed to be protecting.” He regrets it as soon as he says it, because she sits up too straight, like she’s remembering she’s at _work_ , which the exact antithesis of The Plan. “Except you don’t need to protect me here, because we’re the only ones in this car since I kicked the assassin out back home. He didn’t call shotgun.” 

“That’s not funny.” 

“It’s kind of funny.”

She sags slightly, crossing her arms, “ _you’re_ not funny.” She shifts again and he’s hyperaware of it, the sound of her pants dragging against the leather seat, the slight shift of the car when she bumps her shoulder against the door. “Ok, if you’re so sure you kicked the assassins out of the car, I’m done sitting on this.” She leans forward and pulls a gun out of the back of her pants, setting it on the ground between her feet. “And this,” a pistol comes out of the side of her boot and she crosses her legs. 

He’s had lots of crushes. He thinks it comes from being tutored, or something, because he didn’t have much exposure to other kids and then when he did he was awkward and parroting and…clingy. 

But every time Astrid pulls a surprise firearm from her person, his crush ratchets up a notch towards the fucking ionosphere. It’s not a crush anymore, it’s a _smash_ , it’s a boulder worthy of Atlas, it’s a weight larger than his national responsibility all pressing down on him at once. 

It makes him stupid and happy and

“You keeping the throwing knives in your bra?” 

Fuck, he mentioned her bra, he’s an idiot. She’s going to shoot him. 

“They’re comfortable.”

He snorts. She smiles, turning towards him slightly, like she does when they’re alone. It’s the kind of open gesture that reaffirms his belief that she _likes_ him. She must, or she would have shot him for mentioning her bra. 

“I mean, why have underwire when you can have under-blade.” 

The Plan didn’t rule out jokes about her bra, but next time it should. 

“Are you going to keep going with that? Really? That’s the next step of whatever manipulative thing you’re trying to trick me into?” 

“Who said I was tricking you?” They’re out of traffic now, the highway finally drawing parallel with the coast, salty air wafting in Astrid’s open window. 

He shrugs. It’s not a peaceful silence, necessarily, because Hiccup’s heart is pounding in his chest because his plans usually don’t make it this far before failing, but there’s something amicable about it. Every line of Astrid’s body is softer with her weapons on the floor, like she’s flexible in a way she tries so constantly not to be. He tries not to think about it, about how normal and comfortable it is to sit like this, about how she doesn’t feel like an employee and she never has. 

“How long is a _drive_? Because this is starting to feel like you have a destination.” She asks when he exits the highway, tall pine trees flanking a smaller road on both sides. 

“Have you been to the summer home?” 

“No.” 

That no isn’t necessarily part of The Plan, but it fits in well enough and he grins. 

“It’s nearby, I left a sweater there, you know Berk’s summers and I have the quarters with only one fireplace and—”

“You just spent thousands of dollars on a prank suit, can’t you just buy a new sweater?” 

“It’s my favorite sweater.”

“Do you have any idea what a security risk this is?” She crosses her arms and rolls up the window, looking outside like she expects a sniper to be lurking in the empty, crown owned forest. “There’s a full sweep before you and your father go in the summer—”

“And has the full sweep ever found anything?” 

She sighs, picking her gun up off the floor. 

“ _No_.” 

“Because no one wants to be at my great great great great grandfather’s actually medieval hunting lodge. Except my dad, I guess, but that’s because he feels at home among the wild boars.” 

“ _Hiccup_ —”

“And I decided to do this entirely randomly and told no one so there’s no way anyone could have predicted it and headed us off. And no one followed us because your super soldier sense would be pinging off the charts,” he turns right and slows down, easing the car down a slightly run down gravel path, uncombed like it never is in the summer. 

“I don’t have super soldier sense, unless that’s what you’re calling common sense these days.” 

He gets caught somewhere between saying her super soldier sense is anything but common and saying he’s not common enough to have common sense. 

“You’re anything but common,” he blurts. She stares at him like he’s crazy but doesn’t say anything, lips pressed together like she’s physically holding her words back. 

He pulls up in front of the house stopping in the middle of the round driveway and turning off the engine. Part of him never expected The Plan to get this far. The rest of him had faith in The Plan and is still lost, because this is as far as he thought ahead. 

The summer house is the only place old enough and rarely used enough to not have any permanent cameras. It’s the only one close enough for a random trip. It’s his dusty, taxidermy-filled partner in crime and he likes it more right now than he probably ever has. 

“We’re just here to get your sweater,” she says it like she’s trying to convince herself and Hiccup’s heart pounds as the last _no_ flits through his brain. 

Because they’re here to talk. They’re here to stop dancing around that massive column of red tape. They’re here because he’s not good with no’s, but especially no’s that have no basis in reality. Especially no’s that keep him away from Astrid, even though they keep careening into each other as soon as no one’s looking. 

No one’s looking now, and he’s not going to let her lift back off this time without iterating explicitly and officially that he doesn’t want her to. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Are you coming?” Hiccup asks, and as much as she wants to impose Prince Haddock over him, especially in the ostentatious car after a day of him flashing a credit card in some shade of obsidian she hadn’t known existed until she saw Fishlegs pull one out one day to rent a tank for an exhibition, he’s still just Hiccup right now.

Dangerously Hiccup. His hair ruffled from trying on a dozen stupid suits, sleeves rolled up his forearms, hand working anxiously on the stick shift. The most princely thing about him is his expression, a placid, friendly one she recognizes from balls and galas where he’s playing a part, and that makes her more nervous than any security threat she’s ever heard. 

“Or, you know, you could just wait in the car and if there happens to be a kidnapper hiding inside and waiting to sell some royal body parts on the black market.” 

“We haven’t had any threats about that.” She rolls her eyes, and it’s worse because he’s right, and she’s never seen the hunting lodge before and that long buried royal curiosity is bubbling in her chest. 

He pauses, drumming his hands on the steering wheel, and she wishes she hadn’t put down her gun, because it’s comforting weight against her back helps her remember that she’s working. 

“Spit it out, what are we doing here?” 

“Can I take your gun to protect myself?” He winces even as he asks, leaning over like he’s going to grab the weapon from where it rests by her feet, and she stops him with a hand on his shoulder. 

“No.” 

For the first time in their less than professional working relationship, that seems to be the answer he wants, and he leans a little closer, just close enough to remind her how tiny the cab of his sports car is. 

“Probably best, my dad would kill me if I shot one of his tapestries in self-defense.” He laughs at his own unfunny joke and she shoves him back to his own side of the car, wincing when the buckle of her watch scrapes against the leather seat. “Hey, sports cars and heirs can be replaced, but not medieval dragon hunting tapestries.” 

“Where’s your sweater?” She unbuckles her seatbelt, “I’ll just grab it for you.” 

“And leave me unprotected?” He grins, predicting her answer and getting out of the car before he even hears her muttered ‘no’. He gets the door open before she can make sense of the glossy handles, and offers her his hand, too hopeful for her to shove it away. Plus, the car is really low to the ground and he did take her on a long enough ride for her to get stiff, and she hates her own excuses and the fact that she hasn’t quit, or something. 

But if she quit, who would protect him? 

No one she trusts as much as herself. 

The realization is a bitter inevitability as she reaches back for her radio, doing her best to ignore the all too recognizably impatient sound in his throat as he tries to stop her. 

“Fishlegs might need me.” She tugs her hand from his, fingers immediately clammy, and gestures towards the front door with an hand uncertain under the lack of weight from its lack of weapons. 

“Not very good service up here.” His bouncy shrug is as hollow as the rest of his expression and she hates how she wants to fill the space he’s missing. She hates how sometimes he feels like a worthy crown and she’d be ok with being absorbed. It makes her push back harder against everything he shouldn’t be. 

Much like the stories that allegedly take place within them, fairytale castles aren’t and never have been real. 

The confusion between castles and palaces has always infuriated Astrid, mostly because of her military history education. Of course, some building with a giant, manicured lawn instead of a moat and rows upon rows of glistening first floor windows isn’t a defensive structure. Castles were damp stone on rocky hills, and while she did enjoy visiting some of Berk’s most famous ruins, it was from a historical, tactical standpoint. Back when she was a private hoping to prove herself, she thought about what it would have been like to be at one of those battles up on those crags, to help. What she could have done to sway the outcome. 

Private Hofferson would be wildly disappointed at how she’s faring in her current battle. The battle she shouldn’t be fighting. 

When she first got her job at the palace, the concept of a fairy tale dropped even further from her realm of possibility. The palace is, on the surface, glamorous and historic and royal, but its security system undercuts every part of that, weaving between the layers of tradition to supply a modern safety net. Bullet proof glass carefully installed in windows framed by two-hundred-fifty year old plaster, steel shutters hidden under the ornate valences outside. Modern electricity routed through ancient walls to cameras and outlets and wireless internet. Wired connections to military involvement. 

A glossy bunker meant to keep relics safe, like a museum. 

A museum where Astrid is a display case. 

“The summer house,” Hiccup is awkward as he opens the front door with a sleek key on his sleek sports car keychain, completely at odds with the heavy, ancient door that creaks open with a poof of dust. “Or hunting lodge, if your general frame has the heat capacity of a nuclear power plant.” 

He laughs, and it’s nasal until he steps inside, where the echo in the ancient foyer turns the sound regal. 

The room is rich, dusty wood, a fireplace at the opposite end closed off by a small but ornate cast gate. The tapestry on the wall is covered by protective plastic, glazed with a season’s dust, but it’s still beautiful, hand-woven and ornate, a demonstration of devotion to power. 

But more than that, it’s real. Protected, for when it will be useful, but _real_. Real construction, real rugs that smell mothy, real paneling that smells like carved cedar. Walls that dampen sound outside and make her believe that this is another world, a safer world, a world where she doesn’t have to think about what’s outside of the walls. 

Her radio gives a burst of static that threatens to ruin the moment. 

“None of the rooms have full power, of course, no internet in the whole place. I used to hate coming here as a kid until…wait, I still kind of hate it because it’s me being shut in with nothing but my dad and Gobber—”

“Stop,” she says. 

Her voice echoes, a little too loud, the old walls absorbing it and shouting it back. 

If she were someone else, her fairy tale would look like this. 

She would stumble upon a royal residence and be accepted. Or no, acclimated. 

This is a life that seems livable. Old wooden walls, tapestries painting her countries history. A life that feels more real than the glitz at the palace. 

She pauses in front of a painting of King Hiccup the Second with a handsome gray horse. The resemblance is undeniable but more reminiscent of Hiccup’s prince-face than his actual expressions and she looks at him before she can help it. 

He’s staring at her, hesitant like princes aren’t, biting his lip, hand in his pocket. 

“What?” She wishes she sounded harsher, but it’s hard when he’s so close and, as much as her patriotic pride doesn’t like to admit, vulnerable. He feels like an emblem of this place, of Berk. 

And so much more. 

“I’m just here to get my sweater.” He points down the hall, leading, and she says the word she never thought he’d want her to. 

“No.” 

“You get to tell me when I’m being stupid, not when I’m cold,” he laughs, grabbing her hand and trying to lead her down a hallway that might be cozy if it weren’t so dark. 

“Hiccup,” she says quietly as she jerks her hand free and he fumbles for her fingers again in the dangerous dark, “Prince Haddock.” 

He stops short, shoulders rigid enough that they tense the crisp fabric of his expensive shirt. It fits him well, she notes, too well. Or just well enough, given how far out of her depth she is, amidst all the old royalty haunting these halls. 

“Don’t.” 

“How—”

“Not now, not when I’m…” He exhales before facing her, face determined in the waning light through the ceiling length windows facing into the courtyard. 

Trusting windows. 

If anyone is in your courtyard, the battle is already over. 

“When you’re what?” She knows the answer. She knows the answer is easy for him and hard for her and more obvious for all of it. She knows how much she likes his long warm fingers on her upper arms and she knows how alone they are and for the moment, in this ancient, storied castle, how dangerous it isn’t. 

This could be theirs for right now. 

“Not when I’m confessing.” 

“Isn’t the Chapel on the West side?” 

He kisses her. Clumsy and urgent and determined to sweep her off of her feet and maybe she wants him to. Here. Where anyone would be willing to succumb to a prince. Where royalty feels real, between safe, heavy walls. 

“I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever asked for,” he whispers as he kisses down her neck, fingers curling around her arms as he pushes her back into a plastic covered tapestry that she wouldn’t shoot if her life depended on it. 

His though. 

“Charming.” She goes to push him away but her fingers curl in his shirt, entirely out of sync with her determination to keep her job. 

“It’s not,” he pulls up, kissing her nose on the way and igniting a hot curl of something fond and real in her chest, “it’s obnoxious.” 

“Both.” She consigns herself to it, for a second, her radio heavy on her hip as she pulls him closer to her, heel around his calf. And he feels right, like he did the other times. And she reaches for this to feel wrong, like it did before. 

The castle wall is cold and Hiccup’s hand are warm where they carefully untuck her shirt like its cheap fabric is anything like the priceless tapestry behind them. 

“No,” he whispers, peppering too sweet kisses across her cheek even as his hands clamp on her ribs, almost hard enough, “no.” 

“Ok,” she goes to shove him off, glad that for once he was the one to find his senses, but he rests his forehead on her shoulder, breathing hard, his hair tickling the side of her neck. 

“I wanted to talk to you.” He laughs to himself over some joke that wasn’t worth telling, “but we—this is why—”

“You’re right.” She disagrees with everything about his tone, pushing him away from her with trembling hands, attempting to dismiss everything comforting about the heavy stone walls around her. “We shouldn’t.” 

They’re defensive, sure, but modernity is useful too. No cameras. No warnings. Nothing to hide from. Nowhere to hide. 

“I’m never right if it keeps you away from me,” he says it, all at once, like buying a sports car. Like it means nothing and everything. Like he doesn’t understand how impossible that is to respond to, especially when there’s no one listening. 

Astrid has thought about dying for Prince Haddock. About taking a bullet. About jumping in front of an attacker’s knife. 

But she’s never contemplated protecting his heart. 

As always, protecting herself wasn’t part of the equation, and she thinks of his portrait at the academy. She thinks of him in the barn, hay in his hair. Of him puffing out to fit shoes that don’t feel quite right and how it’s the only time that admitting doubt and fear has ever seemed brave. 

“You don’t know what you’re asking me for.” She sticks to the truth, because it’s the only thing that could ever compete with heavy walls. 

“I do,” he nods, eyes bright in the darkness, hands softening against her, voice filling the room like it belongs in every corner, like he feels the walls as part of him. 

“Hiccup—”

“Everything,” his smile is wincing, like he just dealt a blow that he wishes he didn’t have to, “I know I’m asking for everything.” 

“You really are obnoxious,” she laughs under her breath, crumbling like a palace under siege as she hits his shoulder with the back of her hand, not bothering to push him away. 

It wouldn’t work. She doesn’t want it to and she’s never been good at lying to herself. 

“Don’t forget horribly spoiled.” His knee notches between hers as he bumps his nose against hers. “Bratty is one I’ve heard a few times. Uncompromising.”

“I did say I’d help with that,” she lets her arms wrap around his neck and her chest feels lighter even as her stomach churns under the lack of cameras to keep her in line. 

Influence should be added to the Haddock crest alongside honor and glory, because she never needed reminders of the rules before he came into her life. 

“Too late.” He grins like he knows he’s won something, “I’m a lost cause.” 

“You know I don’t believe that, or I wouldn’t try so hard to keep you alive.” 

His jaw drops, faking offended, and she laughs even though there’s no going back now. The door clicking shut doesn’t sound enough like a dungeon to make her pause, even though she’s seen the gilded cage snap shut across Hiccup’s expression more than enough times to respect it. 

“Here I thought you did that because you liked me.” He seems to weigh the statement for a second, “and it’s your job.” ‘Job’ is a dirty word surrounded by so much history and duty. 

“I could ask for a transfer.” She lets her fingers tangle in the too long hair at the back of his neck. “Snotlout can’t seem to keep a guard around for more than a few weeks, I’m sure Fishlegs would be glad for a break finding replacements.” 

“No,” he frowns, “I like that you’re obligated to spend so much time with me.” 

“There has to be a compromise here.” 

“I don’t trust anyone else.” 

“Someone else kept you alive for twenty four years.” 

“And look at me, a spoiled, uncompromising, obnoxious brat.” He leans down to whisper in her ear like he’s keeping a secret from the walls, “you were committed to helping me with that, unless you’re a quitter, in which case—”

“Hiccup.” She doesn’t want him to go there, to use that voice that makes everything sound so easy, like he can snap his fingers and summon the solution on a silver platter. “We…have to be better about hiding it, ok? No one can know, we can’t disappear together for hours on end—”

“I know I’m an embarrassment, but you can’t tour the crown jewel gallery if you’re too proud to be seen with me,” he nudges his hips against hers, missing the point with deft intention and she cups his chin, forcing him to look at her with stern fingers. 

“You can’t get everything you want.” She lets her thumb brush across his lip and his tongue darts out after it as his eyes flick down. 

“Keeping a secret around the most highly monitored properties in Berk,” he kisses her, pulling back just far enough to murmur against her lips, “could be fun.” 

“Great.” She grins, tugging on his hair just enough to stop him from distracting her further. “We should get back.” 

“But we haven’t gotten my sweater yet,” he ignores her hold on his hair and kisses her jaw, “from my quarters…” His breath is warm on her neck as his hands migrate back to the buttons on her shirt, “my imaginary sweater that I made up so that we could finally talk.” 

“We’ve been gone for hours, I have to get back.” 

“We’ve already been gone for hours,” he pushes his birthright bundled luck, “what’s a couple more?” He gets a button open and strokes her lower stomach, grinning against her cheek when she shivers. “Plus, I feel so safe here. More than normal. You’re doing an excellent job—”

Her radio crackles to life with a shockingly loud burst of static before Fishlegs’ unusually panicked voice pours out into dark. 

“Rumblehorn has been compromised. I repeat, Rumblehorn has been compromised. All available units report immediately.” 


End file.
